


Just On A Regular Job

by Kanervakani



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Character(s), Alien Planet, Aliens, Original Fiction, oblivious dumbass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 12:47:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15195113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanervakani/pseuds/Kanervakani
Summary: From the writing prompt, forest + Jalopeura. A kind of an awkward little thing about what their relationship with some of the people they work with is, including Clin the cute spiderface that has a lot of moral dilemmas, her workers and a mystery TM boss that is just soooo proud of their kids!!! So proud.I kinda don't like this but its 4 am and i promised myself not to file these forev er





	Just On A Regular Job

” You should be wary of those. When irritated for too long and too roughly, the löttjetke tree will begin to produce a highly dangerous toxin that has no trouble absorbing through the skin,”

At that, a short human with a face tinted with multiple blue hues quickly turned from the tree with an alarmed expression. They pulled their hand away from the fuzz skinned long leaves hanging from the highest, oddly smoothly curving branches, and turned to wipe their hand on their friend, a needle shouldered aliens, nice clean shirt.

Jalo tensed at the reaction and started to get scared of a fight breaking out as the alien that’s species Jalo couldn’t place, grabbed the others wrist and started up cursing in a language that had a familiar sound. With a stuttering start, they said:” you’re in no danger yet, it takes at least ten minutes.”

It wasn’t the thin voice that stopped the bickering alien, it was the deep but strangely clicking and paced words from their boss.” You heard them, stop acting like kooks and concentrate on making sure no giant birds or some shit ambushes us,” she groaned turning away from the large, black containers with chrome slices enforcing the corners. 

The group stood in a dark little cove; it would have been extremely hard to land there on bigger ships, but both had small, dark ones that slid between the generously spaced trees easily. The three other lackeys Clin had with her were carting the rest of the boxes down the crooked ramp of Jalopeuras ship to be inspected. There were four; they reached Jalo to the hip but were considerably thinner. They made for very light cargo, even for Jalopeura who carried very small shipments. 

Jalopeura shot an apologizing gentle look at the two aliens who had straightened their backs. The human glared back, but the other smirked with their strange beak-like mouth. A responsive smile flickered along Jalopeuras lips, but slowly started to turn into a more honest smile when their eyes strayed to wander around the forest.

As Clin continued with the inspections, Jalo took small, shy steps, almost like a child preparing to do something illicit, towards one of the other löttjetke trees and its lower, younger branches. Their arms wrapped around the strap of the bag they were carrying, and they reached to dig out a pair of cloves, clean cutters and a little box of plastic slides for sample collecting.

Jalo had been elated hearing about their newest destination. The forests of Attakwan-KB-998 were mostly unstudied, in the midst of the explorations to this part of the space, as there were almost no helpful resources ever found. The first visitors must have felt almost haunted, as the planet had an almost universal law of silence. In the dark domes created by the trees there was no wind, no animals that spoke. Most of them were blind and sharp of hearing, and due to this, made themselves almost impossible to hear too.

The articles Jalopeura had come across a few months ago described delicate, intelligent animals with thousands of thin legs that moved rhythmically finding the softest ground and made it look almost as if they were steadily floating above ground. Flexible species that could hide themselves into nooks and crannies of the forests, grey and hard to distinguish from the dark setting. Clin was right to be careful, though the idea of large, stomping birds was far away from what they should be careful of.

Pulling on the gloves, Jalopeura began to cut some of the healthier looking leaves off of the young branches. They were dark grey and thick with water and toxins. Careful not to get any of the liquid on their hands, Jalopeura contained a few in the plastic bags. They would need small ground samples, maybe some of the soft looking outer layer of the trees, and as they left they could cut some of the older leaves from the top if they hovered carefully enough.

The aspect of these creatures and especially the unmapped, mostly undocumented poisons in the trees and plants, had Jalopeura so exited that they hadn’t stopped for a moment to ask why in the seven galaxies would anyone wanted to choose this as a place to exchange cargo. The importance of getting new samples had passed the questions about what even was in those containers that they had been moving through the more haphazardly mapped parts of space for the last two weeks. No matter what, it would have been rude to pry. Strange folk were everywhere, and Jalopeuras employer for this job and other similar ones was the strangest of them all.

In the middle of bagging a bit of the bark, deep in thought Jalopeura almost jumped at the voice behind them. 

” Everything’s in order. I just need a signature-” Clin started, but stopped, almost flustered looking at the way Jalopeura turned in fright and stared at them with open glowing eyes.” Oh, don’t do that, I made as much noise as I could walking here,” she mumbled gently. Jalopeura blinked a few times, straightening their back and smiled in that uncertain way they often did when they didn’t know what to say. Clin was intimidating, taller than even Jalopeura and heavy in composure, but somehow, she moved with silence and fast at that. She would have fit well on this planet. She had scared Jalopeura a few times now- on each of the five jobs they had met on in fact. Yet they really liked Clin. She was tough but spoke softer to Jalopeura after their first meeting.

Her odd claws made clicking movements on her cheeks, as if motioning a wondering expression as she handed the screen holders to Jalo. They took it, writing down their password and writing in the signature with their forefinger. As always out of habit, they opened the ‘notes’ box, writing down a little message to the boss of this whole operation. ‘KB-998 is really rad, trip was also nice. I hope you’re having a fantastic day, xoxoxo ‘. The section was more an often-ignored section for any information on complications or mentions about future jobs, but Jalopeura knew the boss had taken to reading the reports themselves and sometimes they got a very sweet note back from them as a message, so they simply couldn’t resist. 

Clin was slow to take the screen holders back and kept looking at Jalopeuras little project.” What have you got there? Lött… something, was it?” she asked almost playfully, yet with something Jalo oddly felt sounded like guilt. They couldn’t help smiling though and lifted one of the bags on eye level. 

” Löttjetke. There’s been a few studies on them but there’s still a lot to learn. I’ve ordered them frozen before, but the process damages them too much for proper work,” they explained now lowering and shaking the bag a bit.” There’s no proper antitoxin for them, which sounds like an interesting challenge, doesn’t it?” they continued staring at the dark leaf. 

The clicking on Clins face sped up almost unnoticeably.” Be careful with it then, sounds a bit…” Clin didn’t have time to finish when Jalopeura was already nodding and almost laughing.” Right, right. Just as careful as with the other 337 toxin samples I have collected,” Jalopeura might not have been very aware of their surroundings most of the time, but that was because they took so much care to do their work cleanly and carefully.

Clin didn’t laugh, and Jalopeura couldn’t interpret their expression from the claws moving around in unfamiliar, but the hand that raised to pet their head told enough. She took clear care to avoid the bag as much as she could as she hummed and moved her hand downwards, swiping it along Jalopeuras arm, and slid their own under Jalopeuras, effectively hooking it like someone walking a proud old lady. Clin carefully pulled them along as Jalopeura hurried to place the cutters and gloves into their bag. 

” Hey, hows the boss? They’ve seemed quiet lately,” Clin almost whispered as they walked towards Jalopeuras ship. The lackeys were now hard at work carrying them to Clins ship. It was far more sleek and modern, less patched up as Jalopeuras. They furrowed their brow not looking up at Clin in a wondering expression.” Oh, I don’t know, I met them properly for the first time getting this job, I’ve only been contracted through email and subordinates before, so I don’t know how they usually are. They seemed cheery to me though, they told me about their kids grades and other pleasant things, ” Jalopeura answered in a silent voice mirroring Clin, though unsure why they were whispering.

Clin was silent for a moment and Jalopeura was sure she had been really close to piecing her own skin with one of her ticking claws in a nervous movement. They looked at loss of words, almost as if uncertain what they should grab onto. Was it the worry that the known hermit of a criminal boss liked this weird little hvalian enough to meet them face to face and probably had some awful plans for expanding their area, or the worry that they had been cold to Clin for almost a month now? 

They reached their destination in silence and Clin let Jalopeura go, again patting them on the head. Poor thing was in over their head. It had taken Clin a while to realize they truly had no idea what they were doing. It was cruel to involve people like this in their work, but Clin couldn’t help admitting the genius of it. A small cargo ship, almost broken down, doing small jobs for private businesses, in parts of the space with the fewest police or sentinels, with a weak little hvalian that’s pretty eyes with the look of innocence, would be the hardest to track or to suspect. Clin was pretty sure that even the usually throughout sentinels wouldn’t mind letting Jalopeura pass any chekpoints if they just had a little chat about small nothings like the nearest sightseeing spots.

Most importantly, they were too much of a dumbass to realize what was happening themself. Clin tilted her head trying not to show her frustration. It still felt wrong. She put her hands in her pockets nodding at Jalopeura.” It’s always nice to work with you,” Clin mumbled smiling as they slightly swung back and forth on their legs.” Meet you next time, I hope,” she continued in an even softer voice. Jalopeura nodded to her deeply and still smiling and moved towards their own ship. Clint looked after them for only a moment before following her lackeys.

She needed to start letting these things go, so the time that she could make those choices had even a slight change of happening.


End file.
